Charlotte Littlefield rode a rollercoaster of emotions on Saturday after her four-year-old gelding Modown scored a gutsy victory in the $175,000 John Duff and Co Vobis Gold Bullion (1400m) on the Pakenham track the trainer calls home.
The race was expected to be a two-horse war, with the Kevin Daffy-trained Oh Too Good ($2 favourite) and Ciaron Maher’s Running By ($2.40) favored to fight out the finish.
But, under the vigorous urgings of champion jockey Craig Williams, Modown ($9.60) held off a strong challenge from Running By to win by a long neck at the end of the seven-furlong journey.
“I won’t take the glasses off because I’m a little bit emotional,” Littlefield said, immediately after the race.
“This horse means so much to me; I thought it was such a good win, wasn’t it?
“He’s promised so much and he’s just failed to deliver a few times, but I knew he wasn’t quite right early on in the campaign.
“We sort of did a few things differently, just gave him a little freshen up and look, I think he’s always shown to me that he’s been a 1400-metre horse.
“I doubted it a few times and I just think the trick to him was getting him to jump from that barrier and putting himself a little bit closer.
“We’ve been trying to do that the whole way through and he just keeps missing that kick.”
Adding to the emotion of Modown’s victory was the recent death of his previous owner, industry heavyweight Col McKenna, who passed away in late October.
“It’s a real shame that Col’s not here, he was a big part of this horse, the reason why we didn’t sell him to Hong Kong, and getting Col involved brought another few really good owners into the stable,” Littlefield explained.
“A few lucky owners have come on board now and taken those shares over, and they’re tickled pink today because this horse has well and truly delivered and pretty much won that and more in one race.
“So, he owes us nothing this horse now, we’re so proud of him and the whole journey.
“I trained his mum, I took the mare and got her served, and we foaled him down with the help of Lisa McMaster.
“Just the whole story, there’s so much to it.”
Littlefield backed in her judgement in the lead up to the race, giving Modown a solid piece of work just four days out from his target.
“I do all his work; his gallop here on Tuesday was sensational,” Littlefield said.
“I doubted whether I’d gone too fast, everyone told me I had, but look, it just got him cherry ripe today.
“So, everybody, I didn’t go too fast on Tuesday!”
Williams said the addition of winkers had fine-tuned the horse’s attitude and made him jump better than previous starts.
“He was more focused today, and he really did (jump better),” Williams said.
“The whole idea that Charlotte said with the winkers, opening him up and getting him to see a bit more, making him a little bit more confident to step away faster.
“What was against us was the fact that the horse outside us was a bit unruly in there.
“So, he’s got a bloke up and moving around with him, and then it still put him off a little bit, but he was able to get into stride pretty quickly and then take control of the race.
“I had the right horse and when the chips were down late, he wanted to win, so it was great.”
